Odds & Ends

Once the FM's inefficiency became a known factor in the presidential palace, RB engaged in some belated damage control. After his conference calls with many heads of missions, he became enlightened on the views of the IC !, i.e. what the Govt. was planning next after the CFA termination. He rushed to the presidential palace and pleaded with MR and Tissa V. to table a proposal ASAP. RB's position was that the IC could be won if a proposal is put forward expeditiously.

He also wanted a proposal based on the 13th Amendment as the 'Indians will support it' and hence the rest of the IC would follow. Since the man had embarrassed the head of state, the Govt. and India on the premature announcement of the Indian PM's visit, RB was adamant that if the proposals based on the 13th Amendment were tabled immediately, then Manmohan would make it for the Feb. 4 event.

All this, he said, was evident after having spoken to our heads of mission by conference call. RB, after all, was also making it known to the presidential palace that he was the most appropriate person to be involved in the matter hinting that other competitors aspiring to the FMs post, GLP, MM & Mahinda S, were very very closely associated with RW during the CFA days. So now RB is claiming credit for the report that came out on 23rd Jan.

Rather than preparing the IC for the report released on 23rd, RB was fighting with SFA Kohona over which MFA officials should go to the event at the presidential secretariat. An opportunity missed was not to have invited the diplomatic corps (at least the co-chairs+India) for the 23rd handing over event.

Rather, RB proceeded to have a big public show on the following day to brief the DPLs and the media. Unfortunately, several key ambassadors/high commissioners were absent for the 24th gathering: US, India, Norway and Japan among the many.

At the end of the event, even the handful that attended were seen remarking to some of their friends from the media who were in the corridors of the MFA at the time that there had been no questions raised by any of the DPLs and that they (the DPLs) were very unhappy at the manner in which the meeting was conducted including the near one hour delay in the arrival of the minister, deputy minister and the secretary. (A media wag quipped "maybe the three of them were holidaying together'!) They also asked, why wasn't the architect of the report, Tissa V, here to address us?

Is the CIA up to some monkey tricks to demean LTTE claims or is it another blunder like its intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. According to the CIA World Fact Book website, the percentage of Sri Lankan Tamils yet remaining in the country amounts to mere 3.9 per cent. It also says that about 200,000 Lankan Tamils have taken refuge in the West. Our own Census Department places the Lankan Tamil population at 11.9 per cent. The CIA site had been last updated on December 13, 2007.

Human rights abuses in the country may be the battle cry of top guns in the West wanting to exert pressure on Sri Lanka to go easy on the LTTE, but Lanka may not be ousted from the UN apex body on human rights, the Human Rights Council in Geneva when its two-year term comes for re-election in April. The secret we are told is that some of the big guns on the world stage like China, Russia and India have already pledged to ensure Sri Lanka’s re-election.

The donor assistance from the West has been cut to the bone, but guess who has stepped into bridge the gap in a big way. We are told that big mouths in the West who give a pittance, but get much mileage out of it as well as giving us plenty of lectures have been quietly outdone by Iran, with hardly a hum and last year it is estimated that for the first time Teheran had become the biggest donor by extending about US$1.9 billion in assistance to Sri Lanka, followed by Japan, China and India.